6/22/15

This
is a broken team of incomplete players. It was originally designed to be led by
a Captain that is no longer on the ship. Instead, he left behind an all-star
team of young, team controlled pitchers that have to hit their own home runs to
win a ballgame.

We
have to stop crying about those good old days when the team had an 11 game win
streak and realize that this is a third place team at best. Neither Terry Collins or Sandy
Alderson can stop the bleeding and, when it’s all said and done and no decent
deal is done before the trading deadline is over, I swear to God I’ll kill the
first guy that stands up and says the timing just wasn’t right for the right
deal.

It
really frosts my arse when I see teams like Atlanta close a deal this past week
for pitching prospect Touki Toussaint. Why is
the Braves willing to take on the Bronson Arroyo salary
in order to build their future and the Mets can’t even find a trading partner
before the all-star break?

Sure,
it cost him closer Craig Kimbrel, three of the
Braves' four best hitters from 2014 (Justin Upton, Evan
Gattis, Jason Heyward), a fourth regular (Tommy
La Stella) and three more of their top relievers (Jordan Walden, David Hale, David Carpenter), but Hart
was willing to step up and turn a team around that literally had no future.

Sandy ALderson seems to operate on the principle of "I win the deal or no deal". Usually he's been on the right side of that, but it also explains the dearth of trades during his tenure. He blew the Angel Pagan one and you could say that Ike Davis was a push since we've seen no fruit from that trade yet (while as a hitter Davis has been a good pitcher). The rest were clearly on his side. I was hoping the Dillon Gee fiasco would take him down a notch, ego-wise, but I'm not holding my breath. I also don't anticipate any trade of starting pitching until the wildcard of Rafael Montero is available to pitch again.

Of course, the most obvious place to improve is the outfield, but then ego-master Alderson would have to admit both Cuddyer and Granderson were mistakes. Even trading for a shortstop opens him up to a major second-guess about Flores.

No, what you see is what you're going to get until year's end when we'll hear how injuries were the reason the team couldn't compete in 2015. (And Terry Collins is given another contract extension because, after all, how could anyone win with all the players hurt?) :)

First, I administrate it throughout the day and add any content that comes down the line via press releases, Twitter tweets, etc.

I now post up only at Monday 10am and Fri/Sat/Sun 8am and do most of that writing earlier in the week at my own pace.

Other than that, I join all of you in the comments portion of the site.

I don't really do this anymore for the love of the team. It was so much more easy to supply exclusive content about the guppies when I worked directly with them.

The past Atlanta series may be my turning point. I had no desire to follow any of the games after the two in Toronto.

Tom and I share a post (Minor League Report)... I write the template and post the names of the starting pitchers, and fill in the top three players for the early games. Tom than adds Las Vegas during his commute to work and also adds comments.

I even find myself bailing out on that before 10pm and letting Tom finish it up.

Reese, you are my most loyal writer and produce two posts a week. Why do we keep doing this? Where is it getting us?

You are seeing what I have been saying for quite a while.It is frustrating.Especially when others try to write you off as just being negative and Met hater when in truth the frustration is born from caring and hope.

Mack those stats are pretty insane...I think the Mets will still be above .500 they seem to go in streaks and with the good pitching these losing streaks usually don't last and winning streaks can get started again. Not having a productive Wright in the lineup with his bat and glove has just really killed us more than anything else. Muno/Campbell just arent MLB caliber players.

Herrera/Plawecki needed some more seasoning and Flores is effectively a rookie. You can take on growing pains of a couple of guys but having Herrera, Plawecki, Flores and the string of AAA guys that come up all going through growing pains at the same time just isnt working. Not to mention having Tejada playing out of position as well. Mets should be eating 100% of Gee or Niese salary or any other player that an net them some talent. This is what the teams at the top do.

Who thought as soon as they saw Cuddyer up in the 9th that he would ground into a double play? He can Campbell have done it so many times so far I just assume thats going to be what happens and it does. Frankly the team in general grounds into so many of them just as soon as you think they are going to rally. Is there a different approach they should be taking in these situations?!

Interesting observation about the number of "incomplete players".... there are no perfect players, but....

-- this team is playing 3 run homer offense---without men on base or home run hitters-- They are Pitching Centered, with poor defense behind the pitchers-- They are "stuck" on a "plus" run producer batting leadoff-- The Bench (positional players) started out SUSPECT...it has proven to be threadbare

My opinion is that Harvey, Degrom, Familia and d'Arnaud are UNTOUCHABLE---- anything el;se can go to make a team out of this...they have pitching that can dominate a playoff series...

Go For It!!!!!! These opportunities are much less durable than they first appear!!!!

Good question on Sandoval, Mack...and Pablo might just eat the remaining 20%.

You can tell I was optimistic early, but pretty disgusted by the Mets' (non) bats right now. Nats were gutsy in spending big on Scherzer. Mets need to get gutsy and stop the cheaper-and-let's-hope-this-guy-has-a-bounceback-season approach. It is flawed.

Brews get younger and cheaper....they get now and l;ater players with upside....you get a relatively young SS---a stop gap at 3rd... and two pro bats. ...and I don;t give a damn about the overlap and the questions about who plays where. I can find a way to win with that.

I think that's a REAL trade.....sucks to lose talent, but production comes in exchange for talent.

For me, long term this team has Harvey, deGrom, Familia, Conforto, Mejia (he's potentially an excellent 8th inning guy and big friend of Familia's - great chemistry there), and EITHER Matz or Thorgaard... the team needs a quality SP3.

EVERYBODY else is available if it was up to me.

I would love to see Murphy come back this year and play third and allow Flores and Herrera to continue to work out their middle infield madness, but frankly, they are all available in a trade in my book.

My biggest problem in my comparison to John Hart and the Braves is that Heyward and Upton were two players people wanted regardless of the fact that they were had a bad season. NO ONE wants Cuddyer or Grandy

that is one optional way of approaching things. It has justifiable merit to it.

2nd option is to once again try to piece together the rest of the season with expiring contract types or players that the other team will pick up some of the salary such as Ethier.

3rd bold option is to target a few young hitters such as the Dodger's Seager and making an offer that costs equal talent and possibly bring in unwanted contracts.

4th do the normal Sandy. Let a few rumors leak distracting fans and giving players some hope the front office is putting in effort for this year. In the long run though.... do nothing using the same excuses he has used the past few years.

I try to come up with topics a few times a week, though I confess to turning off the game once they get more than 2 runs behind because the offense just isn't there. And as much as I like to bash my buddy Terry Collins, John McGraw couldn't win with this lineup. Although Collins is more Charley Weaver than Earl Weaver, the fact remains that it's on the owners and the GM to fix the roster.

I missed the games this weekend, and I'm thankful. Cuddyer continues to kill any chances this team has of rallying. What's his BA RISP now? .185? Doesn't take into account the double plays!

But,on the other hand, regardless of how bad he's been stinking - he was brought in as a complimentary piece to Wright, Murphy, Duda and D'Arnaud and they just have NOT been on the field together since the second week of the season. I thought the lineup would have nice balance - but injuries have broken this squad. Bad, bad luck. the curst of being a Met fan. Every year, one aspect gets fixed, another comes crashing down.

If we could score any runs at all we wouldn't be moaning so much about every defensive play. The defense is just magnified so much because you cant make any mistakes at all or you just lose with the lack of run support.

Cuddyer was just a bad signing. A few articles (that did their research) expounded on how good he would have to be at the plate to make up for losing a first round pick and get around his defensive shortcomings. Suffice to say he has to have a hell of a 2nd half to not look like a complete disaster. I agree, total rally killer.

Its feels like so long since we have had a really solid all star hitter (no I dont count Murphy last year). Duda is the closest thing and he keeps dropping amount the leaders in offensive categories.

Unfortunately for the Mets, too many Met fans have taken your advice over the past few years. They did indeed "get off and go home".

An attitude similar to the sentiment you have expressed, by the Wilpons has resulted in the drastic erosion of the Met fan-base. This has contributed more to the money difficulties that are constantly pointed towards as the reasoning behind actions/inaction by the organization.And the snowball picks up speed over and over again.

Like it or not. There is a legitimate concern regarding where the organization's major league roster stands currently and the effectiveness/worthiness of "the plan" and how it has been implemented over the past few years.

And you and I both know that the Wilpons/SA are not going to begin to take the steps to fix this roster when frankly its impossible to determine lately who should remain in the game.

I have never seem such a complete loss of concentration coming from most of the players, the infield in particular.

And I have to mention that the taking out of deGrom by TC was classic.

As I've mentioned a couple of times, I don't have the solution to this problem because it still starts with the injuries. If they just could get Wright and Murphy back in the lineup, things might be able to calm down a little.

Still... DL Lagares and fix him. He's useless to the team right now in the condition he's playing (did you see that attempt to throw home?). Remember... he also has a 'cheap' long term contract which makes him a good trading chip in a future deal.

I know what you are feeling. This Atlanta series is the first series since 86 I haven't been able to watch at all. I just don't feel like the FO wants to win any more - they're too busy proving they're right. I started being a fan of this team when the AAA team came to town in 1968. I stuck as a fan even when Jeffy blew the relationship between the team and Norfolk by ignoring the AAA management ant the Norfolk city fathers for 3 years. (I believe Dave Rosenfield's account of what happened much more than Fred and Jeffy's. Dave has been first the GM and now the team President since the Tides were a Single-A Phillies affiliate, through the Mets tenure, and now into the Orioles tenure. He doesn't lie.

Sometime this winter, if not sooner, I have a decision to make. Washington is the closest team to me physically, but I don't like them. I'm much more admirining of Atlanta. Philly makes me ill. I want to stay a Mets fan, but I can't root for a team that's being run so incompently. You can't blame this on injuries - it's failure to replace the long-term injuries. When a 60 year old man who has been a fan since he was 12 is being chased off by the failures of ownership and management, something is drastically wrong. This team died in 2002, when Nelson Doubleday sold out to the Wilpons. Everything since then has been Madoff, Omar (a good thing), and Alderson - a man with too big an ego to admit there might be another way than his.

I have come to realize that The Captain is what has been keeping me around. He's gome, for the most part. I am having trouble finding anything in this team to believe. They are starting to feel like the version of the Cubs with a 106-year losing streak. And no one in management cares.

Well hey this is a fun comment thread........I can't wait to head back to st Lucie again and watch another relaxing game a minor league ball with no stress.

Regardless of what happens the rest of this year im most likely gonna still watch as many games as I can on my tablet of the big boy club.I read the news on a pending Matz promotion but im not too enthused about it honestly. If the Mets woulda/coulda/shoulda just traded Gee and Niese a long time ago, I think all us Mets fans would enjoy Thorsday and Matz day very much. ....but instead we've watched a professional pitcher be humiliated, and another one I guess also soon be embarrassed and banished to a bullpen spot he can't and shouldn't be on.

(First, I'm sorry to the rest of you for my comments about Stubby... you know I've always been a little too thin skinned and I've never liked his direct attacks at me... my apology... please don't run off)

A good 5-6 game winning streak would do wonders for me right now, I still question whether or not I'm going through another season of this. I honestly don't see a light at the end of the Wilpon tunnel. I really don't.

Mack, I got to your response from June 20, 2015 at 11:59 AM. I was not referring to your hypocrisy as far as the line, or tightrope, between fandom and ethical journalism. I could care less how good of a journalist you pride yourself on being.

This was the last sentence from your response: "Does all this make me a hypocrite? I don't think so, but what I do know is that I would never ask you or anyone else on this site such an insensitive question."

What insensitive question are you referring to? The one where I asked you whether you did in fact actually root for the Mets? The reason I asked is because I was being ironic. Because the very thing you said you'd never ask ANYbody—that same "insensitive question"—is what you inquired of me just a little over a week ago:

"Zach, do you root for the Mets?"

June 14, 2015 at 11:49 AM

So I said it back to you after you made a similarly negative comment. Now things got a little more ironic/hypocritical when you said, or claimed, you'd never, ever ask ANYone that. Isn't consistency at least a minor principle of journalism? Or at least the vaguest recollection of what happened a week ago? Conveniently enough, all this stuff is dated and documented on your site. So … … … … … … how do you explain this? I'm at the very least curious.

Hey eraff u know who else is apparently known as a 'bad boy'?.......matt Harvey. He may or may not be cocky, chose his own rehab on his own agenda and not the teams, enjoyed watching rival jeter last game or whatever, and loves the spotlight. ....but u don't see any coaches or GM talking any smack about him directly or even hinting as such in the media. A class organization doesn't pick and choose who to privately/publically support and who to throw under the bus.I don't remember any crazy headlines from the Cards when Pujols left. I assume they simply couldn't afford him, so he's gone. No trash talk. And oh the cards just keep on winning.

Oh quick question......If braves can make that trade to get a high 2014 draft pick, why can't the mets find a taker for cuddyer, or even grandy (im tired of mentioning the pitcher names in trade), if they threw in a casey meisner in the deal?And if Molina and Montero were both healthy, I wonder if Mets would have traded one of those two 'untouchable' guys in thor or matz by now.

I think this season is shot and that no big trades will happen. Of course, nothing is impossible.

I don't believe in the "5 Aces" concept. Somebody has got to go. I vote Syndergaard.

Team has so many issues, and weird pieces, that it's going to take a series of 3-4 moves to seriously address problems and reinvent culture. New manager while you're at it. I don't think any late July trade will do it, not do I think SA has the inclination.

Still angry about giving away Gee's number. That was gross, and stupid.

I'd like to see what a new, bold GM might do.

The injuries have hurt, and this is a team that could not afford to lose Wright. To me, it's the lack of response -- an annual thing -- that disturbs me the most. Bringing up Muno & Campbell, though begged for here by some, was like waving a white flag. In May!

All of this is why Alderson should never have received an extension.He may have been the right gm at the time he was first hired, but he was not the right person to move the Mets to the next step the organization needed.